The need to support workpieces during work thereon is well understood in various manufacturing, industrial and other settings. Depending on the particular situation, it is also well understood that a variety of dissimilar workpieces may be processed in a single location. Consequently, it has been common practice to employ work stands or similar fixtures for supporting each workpiece to be processed.
As should be apparent, particularly in large-scale manufacturing operations that process large numbers of various workpieces on a regular basis, this known practice of using workpiece-specific support fixtures can be expensive as well as space and time consuming, and also typically requires a great deal of effort when switching from one workpiece to another.
For example, vehicle manufacturing facilities that produce a number of different vehicle models will also be required to produce and/or process a number of workpieces that are unique to each vehicle. One such commonly recognizable workpiece is a front and rear vehicle bumper fascia, although there are obviously a myriad of other components that are also exemplary of this issue. In the case of a bumper fascia, there may be a number of processing steps that occur after molding, including but not limited to, gate trimming, cleaning and/or other surface treatment, and coating (i.e., primer, paint, clear coat, etc.).
As should be apparent and as would certainly be understood by one of skill in the art, each bumper fascia typically must be supported in a desired position and orientation during each aforementioned process. In the case of a coating process, for example, bumper fascias may be placed on hand-coating fixtures but, more commonly, are located on conveyor-driven fixtures that transport the fascias through an automated coating application process.
When a number of vehicles are produced at the same facility, the typical result is that a number of dissimilar bumper fascias will need to be processed by the same coating system. In a large-scale vehicle manufacturing facility, this likely means that at least hundreds of model-specific bumper fascia support fixtures must be produced and used to support the bumper fascias of an associated vehicle model during a coating operation. This also means that each time fascias for a different vehicle model are coated, all the associated fascia support fixtures must be changed. Clearly, this is an expensive and time consuming method of workpiece support. Additionally, it should also be realized that each time a given support fixture is removed, stored and subsequently reinstalled, there is the possibility that the fixture will be damaged.
In light of the foregoing commentary, the benefits of avoiding or at least minimizing the number of separate workpiece support fixtures required to process a given group of workpieces should be apparent. A workpiece support fixture of the present invention and its method of use are so directed.